


A Murder in April

by Jintian



Category: The X-Files
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 1999-08-03
Updated: 1999-08-03
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:21:09
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,685
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323809
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jintian/pseuds/Jintian
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>One woman's death affects three different people.  Post-"The Blessing Way/Paper Clip."</p>
            </blockquote>





	A Murder in April

**Author's Note:**

> Beta thanks to Forte.

The gun blast -- and there is a flash of light that illuminates her figure for less than a heartbeat -- obliterates the sound of bullet meeting brain a split second later, and if it were not for her pained cry strangling the air like a wounded animal there would be no guilt, no culpability. The force of the shot pushes her against the white door, and then she falls, crumpling in an ungraceful heap with her face turned into the floor. He stalks out from behind the wooden armoire, Cardinale just behind with gun in hand, and nudges her over with his foot.

Her face is a stranger's face. The wrong face. It consumes him, pulling through the tunnel vision of shock. Her brow is smooth and white, surrounded by red waves of hair. The blood that seeps out beneath her onto the wood floor does not mar the picture -- already incorrect -- but rather enhances it, adds to the whole, something like what a certain brush stroke or mixed shade might add to a painting. And indeed it is a still life he is staring at, arrested in her pose by the pull of a trigger.

He believes that to murder is to take upon oneself the task of advancing the event -- death -- that will someday make all humans the same as one another. It is the ultimate leveler. To perform the act is to create one's own power, exercising this supreme kind of command over a person who could have been yourself, if the DNA chain were less than a fraction of a percent different.

But in the end the pivotal point of it all is that the DNA chain _is_ different, coding each and every human into a separate, individual being who will make his or her own separate, individual history. And to murder the wrong person is not to create power, but to lose it in infinite mass.

What he feels now is a swirling maelstrom of possible outcomes shifting around the nexus of this event, this particular death, and oh yes, it will be a death. He knows with the certainty of one who kills for a living that this stranger-woman will die. But what he doesn't know, standing at the center of the storm, is in which direction he will next be thrown. And he can only swear an ineffectual curse, and before that he can only breathe a useless denial. And then he stumbles out the door with Cardinale trailing in curiosity.

The night outside is savage, the shadows reaching like claws.

*

At Melissa's funeral Dana Scully stands in the midst of her family, peripheral vision blocked by the solid dark-clothed shoulders of Bill and Charlie, her mother weeping just to the right front of her and almost -- almost but not quite -- blocking her view of the coffin. The priest drones on like the late April bees buzzing around the flowers, but against the pound of blood in her head his words fade and disappear. Her mother's sniffles and tissue-muffled sobs fade as well, and that is welcome, that is a silencing she craves.

She remembers.... she remembers....

Once, in a springtime when they were younger, she and Missy had stood together in front of a mirror, imagining what it would be like to be old, to be wrinkled and white-haired. She had looked at the reflection of her sister, the flame of hair and sparkling eyes and face that resembled her own but had somehow come together into something exquisitely more beautiful. And she had been unable to imagine such a future for the vision of life and breathing young vitality beside her.

"You won't grow old," she had told Melissa then, speaking out of a wisdom that was half hope and half honesty. "You _can't_ grow old."

Her sister had laughed, and tucked a lock of Dana's hair behind her ear.

*

The air of the roadside diner is golden, and the sunlight filtering through the curtains brushes Scully's hair with warmth and reverence. As she drinks her water the glass provides a cover for her face, and her eyes over the brim are skittish and bewildered, avoiding him. But when she puts the water down her mask is back in place. She becomes again nothing but strength and unyielding determination.

He marvels that she can appear so in control, while he -- he feels as though the world is caught in a tailspin, as if the force of it might throw him off and out into the endless drift of space.

Once Skinner finally arrives he begins to realize exactly how he is skating on the edge, losing his futile struggle second by second. He is on the verge of inner chaos, dead father and no justice and an impossible deal on the table, but she -- she is demanding and logical and direct. "I need to see my sister," she says, eyes bright and brittle.

But she drops her gaze in shame when she realizes to whom she is speaking.

And despite her mental backpedal, part of him wants to hit back from his weakened and cornered position, to strike out in retaliation -- how could she _think_ how could she possibly THINK of _her_ sister -- but the illogic of his emotional response is frightening. There are more holes already in his life than she could ever have imagined on her own before, but she is already fast approaching his number. He cannot let himself aid that progress.

Instead he stands and walks away, leaving the decisions to her. This is what he will give -- this battle out of the war -- in return for freedom to visit someone else's sister, because he is in a tailspin, losing control on the situation, and Scully at least has the semblance of competence. And he does hope, for her sake, that it will be enough.

But that night, cradling her against his shoulder in Melissa's empty hospital room, the bed stretching white and smooth and accusatory, he remembers his buried urge to lash out against her thoughtless remark and pulls her closer, rocking on his knees. The dam of her emotions has cracked just a bit, and the sad sound of her breathing cuts at him, slashing gashes through which he lets a few tears of his own leak out and flow.

He tastes salt water on his lips as he kisses her hair, and when she lifts her head to look at him with burning eyes he can only think to show her that he wears no mask, that mere hope is not all he has to offer. That in this moment, despite all of the hurtful past between them, this moment when now more than ever they should grieve together, he will be here for her.

*

On the day of the funeral, when she arrives home from her mother's house for the first time since leaving with Skinner, her apartment is dark and quiet. She walks in a daze through all of the rooms, turning on every available switch, every available lamp. The light blazes against the cheerful colors of the walls and furniture. The brightness strikes her eyes, and she lowers her face, blinking.

Her mother had not been happy for her to return home so soon, but she had wanted -- needed -- to be alone. Alone and away from the shocked, angry grief of her brothers, away from the defeated slump of her mother's shoulders. The vacant, empty feel that seemed to permeate the spaces between all four of them. And yet even despite her self-imposed solitude she had promised Mulder she would call him tonight.

But she does not move to the phone. There are bloodstains visible on the floor just in front of the entryway. She stands staring at them...an eternity of staring.

She has seen them already, after the night in the hospital, dashing in and out of the apartment to gather enough clothes for the next few days. But that had been blessedly brief. And besides, Mulder had been with her then, radiating sympathy that clutched at her for more emotional sharing, sympathy that she found cloying and awkward. She had not met his eyes as she pushed past him with her carryon bag, and when he stepped out into the hall behind her she had closed and locked her front door without a word, shutting out the image of all the blood.

Blood. Sometime later now the thought jolts her back to herself. The cleansing of crime scenes, her clinical mind lectures, is not the responsibility of forensics teams, and she hasn't yet had time to hire a professional service. Consequently, bloodstains.

She has seen this type of human leftover many times while investigating violent crimes, but she kneels next to the area now with a fascination that far surpasses any forensic curiosity.

She reaches out a slow, tentative hand, as if Melissa herself might suddenly appear on the wood in front of her, but stops just before touching the maroon streaks. This is her sister's -- this is her _sister's_ blood. She does not believe in ghosts, or residual life forces, as Mulder would call them, but some things are too sacred, too real, for skepticism. She cannot touch the place where Melissa's life first bled away.

And yet she is drawn to it. She cannot leave the spot.

Oh, but it is a cold, dark place where she crouches, huddled next to the stains. An empty place, an aching place, a vacuum surrounded by jagged edges, icy enough to freeze her tears before they can fall. Somewhere outside of herself she is aware of a phone ringing -- it will be Mulder, worried because she has not called him yet -- but the sound is just an echo of an echo, and she does not stand to answer it.

Instead she sits, draws her knees up to her chest. Rests her cheek on them, balling her body up to conserve the warmth that is fast escaping. And lets her eyes chisel into memory the sight of Melissa's blood, dry and staining dark into the floor.


End file.
